In the Garden
by October
Summary: Frodo has gone to the Havens. Sam remembers his friend and his sacrifice.


Author's Note: Mostly inspired by the book, partly inspired by the song "That's What Love is For." Please r/r, this is my first story uploaded to this site  
  
Disclaimers: Standard fanfic disclaimers apply. None of these characters belong to me (I sooo wish they did... :) and I am making no money.  
  
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It was Galadriel what first made me understand that the Elves can hear your speech somehow before it leaves your mouth, and over distance, too. And you're part Elf, Mr. Frodo. I always knew it. So I hope you can hear me...  
  
Or maybe this kind of distance is just too great.  
  
It's so beautiful here! I wish you could see it. Maybe you can, through my eyes. See your old flower garden? The roses and the marigolds and all? And the grass, just like emerald under the sun, and the Mallorn standing so tall and proud like a tower of gold and silver? That's Elanor playing under it. See how she's grown?  
  
How I wish you were here with me! Everything's so beautiful, but I feel so sick at heart, because in the end I failed you.  
  
I tried to be whatever you needed me to be, but it wasn't enough.  
  
Time was you and I used to sit in the sun on this very bench and talk the weather and the gossip, and you'd tease me about Rose and we'd laugh together. Seems a thousand years ago. Before everything changed.  
  
In Lorien after we looked in the Mirror, you were so scared. In the wee hours of the morning you were crying all by yourself. I felt so sorry about it all, with Gandalf gone and Bilbo at Rivendell, and all you had left was your poor old Sam. Even your mum and dad had died when you were just a mite... But you reached for me, so I could mother you instead, and you fell asleep with your head on my shoulder and your tears on my lips and I almost cried too.  
  
I don't want to think about the Journey, and yet I do. Seems the most beautiful things can happen right in the middle of the most terrible. I keep seeing your face, that terror in your eyes, but every time you looked my way, it faded just a little. And when you slept, you slept deep, but if I spoke to you or held your hand you smiled. Right in your worst despair you would smile at me. At the end, on the Mountain, you smiled and said you were glad that I was with you.  
  
It was afterwards I feel like I betrayed you. It was my stupidity showing all over again, thinking just because you'd come back home you'd be all right. So I left my Rose to mother you when I was more worried about the trees. Trees... I was out planting trees while you were suffering, she told me later, suffering something horrible, but you'd forbidden her to say a word to me about it. Then Elanor came and everything was all about her-- sweet little thing she was, and is-- and before I knew what had happened you were gone. Then I saw you'd waited, held on somehow just for me, until you knew for sure I had other love enough to bind me to this earth.  
  
And it is a beautiful earth. Would've been wrong for me to leave it then, or now.  
  
I know it was all worth it. I know it was worth your life, and mine too, if it had come to that. But how I cried that night after I came back here all alone! Rose just held me and still I cried and cried, and then it was she told me about your sickness and how you'd lived so long only for my sake.  
  
But... It's not over yet. It's not over. You told me so yourself, right before you left, and I believe it. Someday I'll see you again, and you'll be healed. I can see the happiness in your face right now. I can see your smile. It's only now that I've got Rose that I really know what I meant to you.  
  
Time for me to help her fix the supper. So many growing mouths to feed, and they came right as you foresaw! But the crops are growing too, like they never grew before, and not one soul in the Shire will know hunger or want, and that's all because of you.  
  
Sleep, Frodo dear, and be peaceful. Wake, healed and content. Someday I'll come to you again. And I'll be everything you need me to be, just like before, but better. I love you.  
  
I will never, never forget. 


End file.
